Forty-two Ghanaian health workers who volunteered in the fight against the deadly Ebola disease in Sierra Leone and Liberia are to form a National and Zonal Rapid Response case Management teams.

The workers, who travelled under the West African Health programme some months ago, would become front liners in case management teams in their various places of work.

Some of them helped with laboratory work, public health and the direct management of cases.

Dr Victor Bampoe, Deputy Minister of Health said the formation of the teams has become necessary in the event of recording a case.

He said: “So Much has been asked from you and you still continue to give willingly. The country is proud of your achievement and sacrifice not even to your own country but to other countries. You are indeed gallant men and women.”

He also commended the Director of Institutional Care Department, Dr Sam Kaba and Mr Robert Kwame de-Graft Agyrako, Technical Advisor to the Emergency Operations Centre for the extra-ordinary leadership they demonstrated.

Dr Kaba said the 42 member Team are a valuable human resource and have what it takes to become front liners in case Ebola breaks out in the country. He noted that that the team members would be stationed in their various hospitals and be summoned when the need arises.

Sharing his experience, Mr. Seth Agyeman, a Biomedical Scientist who was nicknamed “Batman” recounted how he had an encounter with a bat at an area where evidence had shown that almost all the creatures were Ebola infected.

He said: “The Bat entered the bus we were riding in and hit me in the face. I struggled with it, killed it and had it buried.”

Mr Agyeman said the psychological trauma started and “It was then that I wished I had not embarked on the journey. At our Hotel, everyone on the bus had to bathe in chlorine and the painful part was washing my eyes with chlorine solution because of the likelihood of an infection from the bat”.

“From then on little increase in my temperature sent shivers done my spine,” he said.

A total of 116 volunteer health workers were dispatched to Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in response to a call by the Economic Community of West African States summit in Accra on November 6, 2014. A total of 42 people made up of doctors and other cadres of health workers volunteered to be part of the response effort and all came home without any incidence.]

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